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Technique: shucking oysters

You could say we met each other early in our lives. I was 21 and Jeremy was 19. It’s not early like his grandparents who knew one another since the age of 5, but early compared to most of our friends. When we married four and a half years later, our low-key wedding was a bigger deal for others than it was for us. We just liked being together. We liked exploring, discovering, learning, growing, playing, and working together.

jeremy on the sand dunes, death valley

We started out as opposites:

I’m loud. He’s quiet.
I’m an extrovert. He’s an introvert.
I lose my temper easily. He remains calm, cool, and collected.
I’m practical. He’s whimsical.
I’m clueless. He’s not.
I like savory. He likes sweet.
I’m a visual thinker. He’s abstract.
I’m organized (OCD). He is chaotic.
I’m assertive. He’s inertial.
I’m Tigger. He’s Eeyore.

surrounded by desert gold in death valley

After almost two decades of shared experiences, I think we have as many similarities as we have differences. I’m still my own person and so is Jeremy, but we make a great team. Our relationship never feels like work, never feels like a burden. If anything, the challenges are always what life throws at us. We navigate them together, supporting one another. Fifteen years of marriage today and it’s stronger than ever.

jeremy coaxes a tired kaweah to look at the camera

the only time he has ever danced in public (at our friends’ awesome wedding)

Our wedding anniversary isn’t such a big deal, it’s just that round numbers seem to be more significant – multiples of 5 or 10. So in honor of our 15th anniversary, I decided I’d learn to shuck oysters. If you had asked me about oysters this time last year I would have said, “oyster whut?” But this past summer, when the Food and Light team went to happy hour after the workshop was over, Jeremy got hooked on oysters.

i blame this young lady

Diane saw Kumamoto oysters on the menu for a steal and got so excited that she asked if the rest of us wanted to order some too. People said sure and she counted, “two for you, two for you, okay that’s a dozen…” then she turned to the server and said, “We’ll order 2 dozen.” We looked at her in surprise and she flashed that adorable smile of hers and said, “I need a dozen!” I like oysters just fine. I can take them or leave them. Jeremy loves them.

some barron point oysters from washington

I went to the seafood department at my local Whole Foods in Boulder (on Pearl Street) and asked one of the nice seafood guys to teach me to shuck oysters. It wasn’t especially busy, so he took the time to explain the morphology of the oyster, the tools required, safety, and then technique. How cool is that? Then he set to work on a couple, quizzed me, and packed up several beautiful Barron Point oysters for me to take home to practice.

equipment: a kitchen towel and an oyster knife

the point closest to you is the hinge, the well or bowl should be on the bottom

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chinese xo sauce

I sometimes forget that I’m Chinese. It sounds crazy, but it is true. I don’t look in the mirror often (this you can probably tell if you have ever encountered me in real life), there aren’t many pictures of me since I’m usually the one behind the camera, and I live with a white guy and a black dog in Colorado. So it startles me at times when I do take a picture of myself and I think, “Oh yeah… I’m Chinese.”

after a happy day of skiing

And then there are times when I really feel it.

There is a young woman, Janet Liang, who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of 22 in 2009. She underwent some nasty chemotherapy treatments and was declared in full remission in 2010. Except she relapsed at the end of 2011. She’s undergoing more chemo now, but her best chance to beat this cancer is to find a bone marrow match and the chances for finding a match are higher within her own ethnic group. She has until April of 2012 to find the perfect match, so time is short. And you know, there are a lot of people out there waiting for a bone marrow match. If we all registered, we might save that many more lives. I tweeted and Facebooked the link to spread the word, and then I went to register online.

I know that fear of wondering if cancer will snuff you out. I knew it at age 36 and it scared the shit out of me. Janet is only 25 years old. She is so young. I was a complete moron at age 25, I can’t even imagine how I would have felt or reacted. I knew the chances of me being a match were slim, but I hoped I could help. When I read the instructions on how to join the bone marrow registry, my heart sank. My history of cancer precludes me from being a donor. I read the guidelines over and over again and the tears spilled down my face. Damn cancer. But my pity party was only a few seconds. If I couldn’t register, I would at least let everyone in my circles know and perhaps get a fraction of them to register. It’s so simple, and yet it’s huge. It is life. Not just for Janet, for many others.

If you feel so inclined, please consider registering through Helping Janet which has links on how to join a bone marrow registry. She’s got just over a month and registration takes a little while, so time is of the essence. And if you could spread the word, that would be aces. Thank you so much. xo

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I think it is very Chinese to be skeptical of Chinese food you aren’t familiar with. Take XO sauce, for instance. This is a spicy condiment chock full of seafood that we usually eat with dim sum, on noodles, on rice, on vegetables, on tofu – pretty much with anything. I grew up knowing it as a true sauce with bright orange oil, colored from the chile. I found a recipe while flipping through my Momofuku cookbook and was pretty jazzed. Homemade XO sauce, at last!

grapeseed oil, garlic, ginger, country ham, chile pepper, dried shrimp, dried scallop

For the uninitiated, there are some items that may be hard to find. Mainly the dried scallops and the dried shrimp. The dried scallops are expensive, but a little goes a long way. When I told my mom I needed to find dried scallops she nearly screamed, “I have some in the refrigerator in our Boulder condo! Use them!” These were whole scallops, which cost more. I said I might use them if I couldn’t find any at Pacific Ocean Market. The scallops are typically found at the front of the Asian grocery store where they sell medicinal items, teas, and ginseng. I had never shopped for them before, but as soon as Mom described where they would be, suddenly the “front counter” of every Asian market I’d ever seen flashed through my brain. Pieces are the cheapest, then they become progressively more expensive for small, medium, large, and extra large.

the array of scallops

whole and pieces

I decided to buy pieces as they were cheaper and I didn’t want to use up Mom’s scallops. I’m still unclear as to why you would buy whole ones anyway because when you rehydrate them, they fall apart. Can anyone enlighten me on that? Oh, and the dried shrimp will likely be in the refrigerated section (in the main part of the store) where they have fresh noodles and pickled vegetables. I was quite pleased to find this kind with no food coloring because all of the ones with food coloring scare me.

small or medium? who knows – i never claim to understand chinese labeling

soak the scallops and shrimp overnight in water (do this first!)

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Recipe: chinese honey walnut shrimp recipe

Some time last week (Nov 7th) marked seven years since I began blogging. I hadn’t even realized this until today as I’ve been bogged down with so much. It seems fitting though, because I’ve been talking with some blog friends lately about blogging “back in the day” compared to now, today. It’s quite different. But I won’t bore you with those musings. I remember how excited I was in the early days to find a handful of blogs that posted Chinese recipes I wanted to make. The two I loved most were Jaden’s Steamy Kitchen and Bee’s Rasa Malaysia. They still crank out reliable recipes and I often reference their blogs for all manner of Chinese (or other Asian) cooking help.

Bee recently released her first cookbook, Easy Chinese Recipes, a lovely collection of favorite Chinese recipes and beautiful glossy photos to entice the reader to make every single dish. Bee’s style in her book is no different from her exacting instructions and helpful background information on her blog. The recipes are easy to follow even if you’ve never cooked Chinese food before. But I’ve cooked Chinese food before. LOTS. OF. IT. Yet, I still found plenty of recipes that I’ve been wanting to make and never found a good recipe for until I flipped through Bee’s book.

easy chinese recipes: family favorites from dim sum to kung pao

As any cook is bound to do, I compared some of my family recipes with Bee’s versions and they totally jived. There was never any doubt. I dog-eared several pages – recipes to revisit when I had more time. I finally settled on a restaurant favorite that I never had the guts to try at home, until now…

shrimp, honey, walnuts

marinate the shrimp in salt and egg white

The shrimp are raw despite their pink color (these are wild-caught Key West pink shrimp from Whole Foods), so be sure to use RAW shrimp and not cooked shrimp. It’s a straightforward process considering there is frying involved. Peel and de-vein your shrimp, then butterfly them if you like. (I like to butterfly them because they take on a pretty curled and flared shape when cooked.) Marinate in salt and egg white.

candied walnuts

mixing up the sauce

**Jump for more butter**